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1 thought on “Ethics in politics”

“No party can come into power if it succumbs only to ethical principles and practices in the elections.”

There can be two dimensions to this statement which can be analyzed as here :

1. First, it can be concluded that the above statement means that ethical principles are not sufficient enough to win elections and one must indulge in extraneous activities. This is indeed practical in a big country like India. To win elections one needs to cling to issue based politics, polarization of votes, appeasement of minorities, making future promises and so on. It is justified because in real sense voting is a ground reality and a voter will vote for a particular candidate if he think that the prospective candidate would work for his cause once he gets elected. This practice goes in sync with ethical principles since no wrong thing is being committed and also because any good work can be done by a candidate only once he gets elected.

2. Second, the statement could also mean that ethical principles do not work at all in politics and one needs to resort to unethical practices like booth rigging, maligning other candidates image, communal politics and so on. This is against ethics and also not a good enough approach because while it may work in the short term, sooner or later the voters would see through it and perhaps then the candidate would completely loose his future as a political candidate.

Ethical principles are in sync with all kinds of electoral practices meant to win elections as long as no illegal and hurtful activity is pursued towards a community or other candidates and they are also a prerequisite since they ensure long term endurability of any political strategy.